


the year of letting go

by buttheyrebrothers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Ghost Sam, M/M, Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Season/Series 06, Suicide Attempt, kind off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4778099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttheyrebrothers/pseuds/buttheyrebrothers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam jumped into a hole and Dean can't let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the year of letting go

**Author's Note:**

> This is fucking sad and I am sorry.
> 
> You can yell at me here or on my tumblr, same URL. I have smut and fluff there.

_„Whoa, easy tiger.“_

_Slow drawl, voice smooth like pining his baby brother to the floor is something he does every day. Like things were ever that easy for them._

_“Dean?”_

_Incredulous. Wondrous. Hopeful, at least in his dreams._

And a dream it is, he knows as much, even as he watches himself cockily smile down at Sam.

Young. Happy. Whole.

It hurts. Dreams shouldn’t hurt like that.

But memories do (he doesn’t deserve to dream, he deserves the pain of moments lost to ignorance and hellfire).

He remembers everything.

Every night, it’s the same. Closed eyes lead to roads well-traveled. Memory lanes, all bearing the same name. SamSamSam.

Every morning, it gets harder to wake up. To leave the bed, face the day. He doesn’t want to.

Dean wants to stay inside his mind and blow the dust off another buried moment he once shared with his little brother. He wants to give up, roll over and submit.

You don’t have to die to become a ghost.

He already is one. A ghost haunted by the past.

But then he will hear a sweet voice, carrying up from below. Calling to him, coaxing him back to the land of the living.

He remembers everything.

A promise, made in answer to a dying wish. Made to a dying man.

Made by a dying man.

The lines between them were always blurred. Two boys, one heartbeat. Shared breath in shared beds. Skin fused together where it constantly touched.

So Sam may be gone, but Dean is not here either. Not completely. Only by half.

At night, he feels less like he’s missing his lungs (his heart). His chest no longer empty like an abandoned church with the echo of his last prayer still hanging in the air. _Sam_.

And so he watches himself being thrown over by Sam, always a bit off-kilter in such close quarters.

“Do you have any idea how hard it was to not kiss you?” a voice asks to his left.

“ **Sam?** ”

Hands on his face, gentle and delicate. Too small, too soft skin.

“No, honey. It’s me, Lisa. It’s okay. I’m here, everything is gonna be alright.”

He wants to sob, to tell her that no, nothing’s gonna be alright. Wants to be cruel and tell her it’s not okay because it’s not her hands he wants on his skin.

“I’m sorry. Dream.” He shakes his head at himself and effectively shakes off her hands as well.

Lisa, who tries to hide the hurt in her eyes but fails, gives him a tight smile. “It’s okay. Breakfast’s ready, Ben is waiting for us downstairs. You coming?”

He remembers his promise.

“Sure, just need to clean up a bit. Down in a minute.”

It’s gonna be another long day.

* * *

 

Dean has grown up on the road, where routines were hard to uphold. He still takes to them easily.

They eat breakfast together, just like a real family.

_He remembers burnt toast and last bowls of Lucky Charms. Toothy grins and gifts freely given._

Dean drives Ben to school before heading to his own job at the construction side.

_He remembers pulling up outside schools all over the country. Gloomy teenage-eyes facing another day as the new kid. His hand in shaggy hair, gesture meant for comfort and reassurance._

Days are spent working with his hands, building things, creating not destroying for once.

_He remembers fixing the car with Sam next to him, showing his little brother the ropes. Wounds bleeding sluggishly, nimble fingers pulling thread, putting hair behind ears like an afterthought._

The evenings are spent together as well, Dean cooks dinner and shares it with the people he cares about, normality.

_He remembers coming up with about a hundred ways to make macaroni and cheese, everything to get Sammy to eat them for another meal. Stolen peanut butter and bread, going to bed hungry so that his brother didn’t had to._

Ben goes to bed around ten; Lisa follows him upstairs around midnight. Dean stays; a bottle of whiskey his faithful companion through another dark, dark night. Never the same bottle, mind you. He keeps drinking until he can be sure sleep will get to him through thick layers of guilt and despair.

Sometimes, when he goes up to their bed, Lisa’s still awake, waiting up for him. He dreads these nights, wants to give her what she needs, deserves, but too empty to do much good. Another love has used up all his passion, all his tears. There is nothing left of him but a shell and he waits for the day this strong and wonderful woman will finally realize this.

He may have made a promise but he remembers having made another one before that.

_It’s you and me against the world, Sammy. Always. You and me._

_I’m not gonna leave you._

Dean is a man of his word.

* * *

 

_A dark field, illuminated by sparkling red and blue and gold. Shining eyes looking up at him with wonder and love._

_“Dad would never let us do anything like this. Thanks, Dean. This is great.”_

_His heart swells and swells, too big for one chest alone so he shares it with Sam._

“You remember.” There is the voice again, this time from behind Dean. He turns around so fast that he feels a little dizzy. Or maybe that’s from seeing Sam, grown-up Sam, standing right behind him.

His little brother looks like he did the night before Detroit. Larger than life and fiercely beautiful. A man with mission. Not damned, as he chose his fate himself. Finally at peace, unburdened by past sins.

Dean replies, “I remember everything.” before his thoughts catch up with him. Sam can’t be here, has to be another trick played by a mind lost from withdrawal. “Are you real?”

The figure chuckles. “Define real.” Dean glares at his little brother and for a moment the _Bitch_ dances over his tongue like a butterfly, too fast to catch but there.

“Okay, okay. Jerk. Here is your less cryptic answer: Can you see me?” A nod, hesitant. “Can you hear me?” Another nod. Sam steps over to him, so close that he feels the heat seep into his body. Warm skin touches his neck, piano-player fingers thread through the vulnerable strands of hair. “Can you feel me?”

 _Yes_ , he wants to say. _YesYesYes._

He wants to say _I miss you_ and _Please stay_ and _I can’t_.

No words leave his mouth but Sam has heard him anyway. Sam had always heard him when words failed him.

“Then I am real, for now.” Sam hasn’t taken his hand away where it is still resting possessively on his neck. “Just as real as those two.”

They both turn around to their younger selves, just in time to witness little Sam lifting his hand to place it on teenage Dean in a way that will make them mirrors. Past and present, now and then.

When Sam pulls Dean down to fuse their lips together in a first, tentative kiss, now-Dean reverses their roles. He goes on his toes and kisses Sam, but is unable to keep it as chaste and innocent as their bygone ghosts.

This kiss is closer to the one they shared on the night of Dean’s deal and just like that he is hit by a cascade of memories. Stolen kisses under bleachers. Desperate clash of lips and teeth, kisses tinged with salt, whispered promises falling into each other’s mouths like raindrops.

_I never leave you._

_You go find Lisa. You go live some normal, apple-pie life, Dean. Promise me._

They part, both gasping. Foreheads pressed together, bodies unwilling to part just yet. Making up for lost time, knowing it will never be enough.

Always more, always closer. A beautiful dance, tideless.

Their love is a black hole, fed by scraped knees and busted knuckles, split-slick lips and flushed skin, silly jokes and endless roads.

They’re not even on the same plane, but found each other even so.

Dean needs to believe they will always find each other. There’s a bullet with his name on it and _he needs to believe._

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

And just like that, Sam is gone. Again. He is standing on an empty field with no air left to breathe and he just needs -

“Sam!”

Hands on him, shaking him, pulling him away from the field, from –

“Sammy, please, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Come back! Please, come back. I’m so sorry. I give you the last Lucky Charms, you can pick the music, you can drive, I do everything, pleasepleaseplease…”

There is no air, he can’t breathe and he’s still begging. Through the haze that makes it hard to think, to do anything except begging for his ghost to come back haunting him, he hears someone crying. It’s soft, like the person doesn’t want him to hear and for a moment he thinks it’s Sam.

But when he turns around he sees Lisa. She has her face buried in her hands, and her shoulders are shaking, and he feels so bad for the disappointment cursing through his veins.

She needs him to pull himself together, to calm down so that he can hold her. Tell her he’s sorry, only a dream, everything’s alright. And he will, in a minute. He just needs to fight his own tears, get some air in his lungs and make his hands reach for someone else than his brother.

* * *

 

The dreams continue, memory lane as well-known as the skin on the back of his hand. But Sam, the real one as far as realities go these days, he stays gone.

It shouldn’t be something new, he’s gone for over eight months by now, but somehow it is. Two visits and he feels like a recovering addict who got another hit after years of abstinence. Back to square one.

It’s not like he ever wanted to quit Sam anyway.

He continues to get worse, losing minutes, sometimes hours of his day because he gets lost in some day dream. Something triggers a memory, and just like that he’s far away. Last time, it was a stupid hoodie. It was charcoal grey and looked like the one Dean had liked to ‘borrow’ when he didn’t feel one hundred. After seeing it on some college kid, he had spent most of the day remembering the times Sam had taken care of him, their roles reversed for once. He had always felt safe with Sam, cared for. Loved.

Sam’s absence is a constant ache, like a phantom pain because his body knows, something that should be there just isn’t.

* * *

 

In the end, he tells himself that he tried. Nine long months he had tried.

But Dean always fails the ones he loves the most. He knows that, has made his peace with it. Now that Sam’s gone there is only Lisa and Ben left to fail, so he does exactly that. He takes his favorite gun, the one with the white pearl handle and sits down in the Impala.

Everything looks still the same, nothing changed inside his baby when everything outside had. There is still the cup of coffee, empty and well-preserved, that Sam had drunken his last coffee from. Hazelnut-vanilla late with soymilk. He smiles at the sight.

The gun is placed on Sam’s seat while he digs through his tape collection. His last dance needs a proper Soundtrack.

He chooses Bruce Springsteen’s _The Last Carnival_.

_“Moon rise, moon rise, the light that was in your eyes is gone away._

_Daybreak, daybreak, the thing in you that made me ache has gone to stay,”_

“I failed you again, Sam. And I wished I could be sorry, but the truth is, I’m tired man. I’m so fucking tired of going on without you. It’s too hard. I tried, I really did. I went to Lisa and she took me in. Apple-pie life. Turns out I don’t want apple-pie. I want you. So, I hope you can forgive me.”

Dean takes the gun and puts its muzzle in his mouth. He’s about to switch off the safety when a voice sounds in the tight space of the car.

“Of course I would forgive you. I will always forgive, that’s just how we are. We fuck up, royally, and the other still forgives us when no one else could.” Sam is sitting next to him, in his space, and everything in Dean tingles with the rightness of this sight.

“But I still wish you wouldn’t do this. I mean, I would lie if I said I didn’t do this to keep you safe. It was you. Who helped me break through the possession. It was always you, Dean. My reason for everything I did. I know it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to not take this away from me, because you are the one up here. “

He finally turns around, facing Dean with his eyes open and vulnerable, pleading- Puppy dog eyes, Dean used to call this expression. He never had been able to deny this face anything. And Sam knows that.

“It’s not fair, but I’m still doing it. Please, Dean. Please. Hold on, just a bit longer. I need you to try for a bit longer. Can you do that for me, big brother?”

They both know that there is no other answer than yes. Always yes.

So he doesn’t waste another precious second with words. They never needed them before, they won’t now. Instead, he slides his hands up Sam’s swanlike throat until they frame his familiar face. His thumbs are busy tracing high cheekbones. Impatient lips descend on waiting flesh and, for a small moment in time, everything is just as it should be. Sheltered by only thing they ever called home beside each other, they kiss and kiss and kiss.

They kiss until Sam is no longer there. The brother-shaped emptiness no longer able to hold Dean upright so he sinks down. There he allows himself to finally mourn everything he has lost in a cemetery in Kansas.

When there are no more tears left he stays another ten minutes and just breathes. Remembers his little brother with a smile that only hurts around the edges. Goes inside and pulls Lisa in, a kiss that says _I’m sorry_ and _I’m going to do better by you and Ben_.

He still remembers everything. He still misses Sam like a limb that lost its body, aimless and without use. He still wonders if Sam was real or if he finally lost his mind. He decides it doesn’t matter.

He carries on.


End file.
